Justhost Review

There are literally hundreds of web hosts out there and hence, it becomes difficult to choose the right one for your requirements. In this Justhost hosting review, we will try and determine if it is the right one for you. The first thing that struck us was that the company has a simple, clean, uncluttered and easy-to-use website that is not shouting for attention. The company was started in 2008 in Glendale, California and was acquired by the Endurance International Group (which has over 5 million customers and over 3,600 employees worldwide) in 2012.

The company, like many others, makes available introductory offers for new or existing users with the regular slew of features at a fraction of the original cost. The company’s plans are targeted towards small business owners, but also has a variety of plans to other types of website owners. The company has hosting solutions including VPS, shared hosting plans, reseller and dedicated and has its focus on great customer support and its competitive pricing.

What makes Justhost's hosting service stand out is that they include $100 worth of ad credits for search engines such as Google and Bing and free security and building tools from SiteLock and WordPress. The company’s data center is based in Illinois in the United States and has headquarters in the United Kingdom, the US and Australia. In this Justhost web hosting review, we will look at some key features of the host such as uptime, pricing plans, security features and other factors such as chat support.

Customer Support

Justhost states on their website that customer support is of the highest priority and they specialize in customer satisfaction. They say that they are dedicated to ensuring that their customers can get in touch with them and hence have three different ways to do so; email, phone and chat.

Email/Ticket Support

The company has a friendly and supportive team that is available 24 hours a day, all days of the weeks. It offers an extensive ticket system which breaks down the queries into tech support, sales, billing, affiliates, sales and so on. Your query will reach the right department in no time and hence the turnaround would be quicker.

Live Chat/Telephone

Justhost has a “Chat Now” button which is perpetually available on the website, and customers can access it anytime they need it, but they need to be logged into their account to use it. The customer support representatives are quick to respond and ready for any type of technical questions you may have for them. Though customers have said that sometimes there might be a long wait to connect to a chat representative.

The phone support (888-755-7585) is as responsive and you are likely to be connected to a representative in no time, who will answer your queries accurately and promptly. Though customer experience about this could be varied, there are generally positive reviews about the company’s customer service.

Uptime

Justhost claims that they are committed to providing a reliable and secure hosting environment to their customers. But while other companies promise a 99.9% (or up) uptime on their websites, Justhost mentions no such number on their server uptime page.

Regardless of this fact, the company has been hailed for its consistent uptime. This could be owing to the fact that their data center is equipped with power backup and that all the customer websites are hosted on high-performance servers with quad-core power. They also monitor their network 24/7, so if an issue arises, they can tackle it immediately.

Key Features

Let's look at some of their main features:

Free Script Library

As a Justhost user, you will have access to a free script library, and it includes phpBB, Joomla, WordPress and osCommerce which can be automatically installed by SimpleScripts. Doing so would increase the feature set and functionality of your website without any prior knowledge of code.

Domain Name Registration for Free

Some plans have a free domain name registration which is valid for a year. Alternatively, you can transfer a domain name you already have with Justhost for no fee.

Unlimited Domains

Registering with Justhost entitles you to host unlimited domains, enabling you to host all your websites on a single server. Everything can be managed using a single cPanel control panel.

Easy Management

You can easily promote, manage and optimize your website using the cPanel that is provided with the account. It has features that let you install apps, design your website and manage your database with just a few clicks.

Money-Back Guarantee

With Justhost, you have a 30-day money back guarantee with the confidence that you would be satisfied with their service. But if you are not, you can cancel the service for a refund.

Pricing Plans

Over time, the company has added hosting plans other than shared hosting and have added Justhost VPS and dedicated hosting. These categories have a selection of 3 or more hosting plans. Each package comes with a different feature set and price.

You also get Ruby/Ruby on Rails, Perl 5, PHP 5 and 7, PostgreSQL databases, javascript, DHTML and Shockwave support, CGI library and CGI Bin, eCommerce features and dual quad processor performance servers and other multimedia features.

Dedicated Hosting

Justhost brings you dedicated hosting that is affordable with instant provisioning and is designed with cloud technology. If you are an existing customer, you can use the Justhost control panel for the upgrade. It offers 3 plans.

Standard: For a price of $79.99 (down from $190.99) per month, you get Intel Xeon processor with 4 cores and 8 threads, 3MB cache, 4GB RAM, 500GB (RAID 1), a bandwidth of 5TB per month, a free domain name, 3 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64 bit).

Enhanced: For a price of $99.99 (down from $150.99) per month, you get Intel Xeon processor with 4 cores and 8 threads, 8MB cache, 8GB RAM, 1000GB (RAID 1), a bandwidth of 10TB per month, a free domain name, 4 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64 bit).

Premium: For a price of $119.99 (down from $209.99) per month, you get Intel Xeon processor with 4 cores and 8 threads, 8MB cache, 16GB RAM, 1000GB (RAID 1), a bandwidth of 15TB per month, a free domain name, 5 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64 bit).

With the dedicated servers, you get mirror storage (so that your data is automatically protected), write-back caching for high performance, storage upgrade (easily upgrade to high-performance SAN storage), and ready-to-use accounts.

You also get server management tools that offer complete control and access over your server and the CentOS operating system.

VPS Hosting

Justhost claims that they build their own VPS servers from the ground up, so you never have to worry about speed. They employ advanced technology such as KVM and OpenStack so upgrading and enhancing is a breeze. They offer 4 plans.

Standard: For a price of $19.99 (down from $29.99) a month, you get a dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, 30GB of disk space, a bandwidth of 1TB a month, a free domain name, 1 IP and CentOs 6.5 (64-bit).

Enhanced: For a price of $29.99 (down from $59.99) a month, you get a dual-core processor, 4GB RAM, 60GB of disk space, a bandwidth of 2TB a month, a free domain name, 2 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64-bit).

Premium: For a price of $44.99 (down from $89.99) a month, you get a triple core processor, 6GB RAM, 90GB of storage space, a bandwidth of 2TB a month, a free domain name, 2 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64-bit).

Ultimate: For a price of $59.99 (down from $119.99) a month, you get a quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, 120GB of storage space, a bandwidth of 3TB a month, a free domain name, 2 IPs and CentOs 6.5 (64-bit).

Since the VPS solutions are built around impressive cloud technology, your path to receive more options and features is open. You are also welcomed into an enhanced cPanel environment with a rich feature set and the ability to manage all accounts.

Justhost also assures its customers that it uses only high performing and high-quality servers, making sure that any resources that you purchase are guaranteed to be available.

Security Features

JustHost prides itself with their security features but are they really that good? Let's see:

SpamAssassin

This is a great spam fighting tool that has become an industry standard and comes as a free service on most hosting accounts. The contents of each message are scanned before it reaches your mailbox and is searched for formats, phrases and words commonly used by spammers. You can read more about SpamAssassin here.

SiteLock

Having SiteLock shows your customers that you are a trustworthy business because it verifies your credentials such as your address and phone. It automatically scans your website to make sure that you are not being spammed or blocked. Also, if your site is displaying the SiteLock certificate, your business gets instant credibility and the customers will trust you more.

SSL Certificates

The Secure Socket Layer (SSL) ensures secure communication between the client and the server. You get free SSL certificates with Justhost’s web hosting plans or you can also purchase or new them. To find out how to go about this, click here.

Pros and Cons

As with all web hosts, there's pros and cons about any of them, so in the next few paragraphs let's see what are JustHost's main features:

Pros

Clean and simple cPanel backend makes it easy for anyone to change settings and getting the job without getting hassled by a multitude of options.

App installation is made simple by making available 1-click installations, be it Concrete 5, Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, osCommerce, website Builder or other apps.

Discounted prices for all their products for the first year of purchase are an advantage for anyone.

Having a free script library increases the feature set and functionality of your website without any prior knowledge of code.

Setting up e-Commerce is made simple.

If you sign up with a new account, you are entitled to a free domain name.

Great money-back guarantee if you are unsatisfied with the service for some reason.

Cons

Some customers have complained of slow page load speeds which can potentially turn away some customers.

Weekly backups are guaranteed weekly, but for those looking for nightly or daily backups, this may just not cut it.

Justhost offers no Windows-based hosting plans.

Some customer are not happy with the aggressive upselling Justhost sometimes indulges in.

Conclusion

If you look at all the factors, it becomes difficult to recommend or rank a hosting company. A simple search will reveal that there are many reviews which are being floated by competitors bad mouthing a host, or excessively positive reviews that are floated by affiliates to boost the popularity of the website.

But you look at all the Justhost hosting plans, you will find that the customer satisfaction with most of them have been above average, and what sets them apart from their competitors, is the ease of use and the number of features that they provide.

Overall, I hope you enjoyed this Justhost review but I wouldn't recommend you joining them as there's a lot of hosting providers out there doing a better job.